Quick Facts
In full:
Taylor Alison Swift
Born:
December 13, 1989, West Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. (age 35)
Awards And Honors:
Grammy Award (2024)
“Time” Person of the Year (2023)
Grammy Award (2021)
Grammy Award (2011)
Grammy Award (2009)
Emmy Award (2015): Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media - Original Interactive Program
Grammy Award (2021): Album of the Year
Grammy Award (2016): Album of the Year
Grammy Award (2016): Best Pop Vocal Album
Grammy Award (2016): Best Music Video
Grammy Award (2013): Best Song Written for Visual Media
Grammy Award (2012): Best Country Solo Performance
Grammy Award (2012): Best Country Song
Grammy Award (2010): Album of the Year
Grammy Award (2010): Best Female Country Vocal Performance
Grammy Award (2010): Best Country Song
Grammy Award (2010): Best Country Album
Notable Family Members:
daughter of Scott Swift
daughter of Andrea Swift
sister of Austin Swift
Top Questions

What are some of Taylor Swift’s accomplishments?

Where is Taylor Swift from?

How did Taylor Swift become famous?

Taylor Swift (born December 13, 1989, West Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is a multitalented singer-songwriter and global superstar who has captivated audiences with her heartfelt lyrics and catchy melodies, solidifying herself as one of the most influential artists in contemporary music. In 2024 she made history when she won the Grammy Award for album of the year for Midnights (2022), becoming the first artist to win in that category four times. Later that year she broke the record for the highest-grossing concert tour when her global Eras Tour wrapped up in December, having earned a whopping $2 billion.

Early life

Swift showed an interest in music at an early age, and she progressed quickly from roles in children’s theater to her first appearance before a crowd of thousands. She was age 11 when she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game, and the following year she picked up the guitar and began to write songs. Taking her inspiration from country music artists such as Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks (now the Chicks), Swift crafted original material that reflected her experiences of tween alienation. When she was 13, Swift’s parents sold their farm in Pennsylvania to move to Hendersonville, Tennessee, so she could devote more of her time to courting country labels in nearby Nashville.

Taylor Swift has been named Time’s “Person of the Year” twice. Who appeared on the covers with her?

A development deal with RCA Records allowed Swift to make the acquaintance of recording-industry veterans, and in 2004, at age 14, she signed with Sony/ATV as a songwriter. At venues in the Nashville area, she performed many of the songs she had written, and it was at one such performance that she was noticed by record executive Scott Borchetta. Borchetta signed Swift to his fledgling Big Machine label, and her first single, “Tim McGraw” (inspired by and prominently referencing a song by Swift’s favorite country artist), was released in the summer of 2006.

(Left) Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee (Ramon Luis Ayala Rodriguez) perform during the 2017 Billboard Latin Music Awards and Show at the Bank United Center, University of Miami, Miami, Florida on April 27, 2017. (music)
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Debut album and Fearless

The song was an immediate success, spending eight months on the Billboard country singles chart. Now age 16, Swift followed with a self-titled debut album, and she went on tour, opening for Rascal Flatts. Taylor Swift was certified platinum in 2007, having sold more than one million copies in the United States, and Swift continued a rigorous touring schedule, opening for artists such as George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill. That November Swift received the Horizon Award for best new artist from the Country Music Association (CMA), capping the year in which she emerged as country music’s most-visible young star.

On Swift’s second album, Fearless (2008), she demonstrated a refined pop sensibility, managing to court the mainstream pop audience without losing sight of her country roots. With sales of more than half a million copies in its first week, Fearless opened at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. It ultimately spent more time atop that chart than any other album released that decade. Singles such as “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story” were popular in the digital market as well, the latter accounting for more than four million paid downloads.

Kanye West incident at the VMAs, Red, and 1989

In 2009 Swift embarked on her first tour as a headliner, playing to sold-out venues across North America. That year also saw Swift dominate the industry award circuit. Fearless was recognized as album of the year by the Academy of Country Music in April, and she topped the best female video category for “You Belong with Me” at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) in September. During her VMA acceptance speech, Swift was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who protested that the award should have gone to Beyoncé for what he called “one of the best videos of all time.” Later in the program, when Beyoncé was accepting the award for video of the year, she invited Swift onstage to conclude her speech, a move that drew a standing ovation for both performers. At the CMA Awards that November, Swift won all four categories in which she was nominated. Her recognition as CMA entertainer of the year made her the youngest-ever winner of that award, as well as the first female solo artist to win since 1999. She began 2010 with an impressive showing at the Grammy Awards, where she collected four honors, including best country song, best country album, and the top prize of album of the year.

Later that year Swift made her feature-film debut in the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day and was named the new spokesperson for CoverGirl cosmetics. Although Swift avoided discussing her personal life in interviews, she was surprisingly frank in her music. Her third album, Speak Now (2010), was littered with allusions to romantic relationships with John Mayer, Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, and Twilight series actor Taylor Lautner. Swift reclaimed the CMA entertainer of the year award in 2011, and the following year she won Grammys for best country solo performance and best country song for “Mean,” a single from Speak Now.

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Swift continued her acting career with a voice role in the animated Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012) before releasing her next collection of songs, Red (2012). While she remained focused on the vagaries of young love, her songwriting reflected a deepened perspective on the subject, and much of the album embraced a bold pop-rock sound. In its first week on sale in the United States, Red sold 1.2 million copies—the highest one-week total in 10 years. In addition, its lead single, the gleeful “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” gave Swift her first number-one hit on the Billboard pop singles chart.

In 2014 Swift released 1989, an album titled after the year of her birth and reportedly inspired by the music of that era. Although Swift had already been steadily moving away from the traditional country signifiers that marked her early work—“I Knew You Were Trouble,” the second single from Red, even flirted with electronic dance music—she called 1989 her first “official pop album.” On the strength of the upbeat “Shake It Off,” the album proved to be another blockbuster for Swift, its first-week sales surpassing those of Red. It went on to sell more than five million copies in the United States and earned Swift her second Grammy for album of the year. In 2014 Swift also appeared in a supporting role in The Giver, a film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s dystopian novel for young readers.

Michael Ray

Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Evermore, and controversies

In 2016 Swift’s feud with Kanye West resumed after he released the single “Famous.” The song included a lyric in which Swift was referred to as a “bitch,” and she alleged that it was misogynistic. The public spat escalated after West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a recording of a phone call in which Swift gave her approval for the line, though West made no mention of calling her a bitch. Swift’s controversies continued as she took part in a widely publicized civil trial in August 2017, after former radio host David Mueller sued the singer, her mother, and a promoter, claiming that Swift had falsely accused him of sexually groping her in 2013 during the taking of a photograph and thus destroyed his career. She countersued, maintaining that the assault had taken place. At the trial, Swift was removed from Mueller’s suit and the other two defendants were found not liable as the jury found in favor of Swift’s countersuit. Shortly thereafter Swift released the hit song “Look What You Made Me Do,” and her album Reputation became the top-selling American LP of 2017.

In 2018 Swift left Big Machine and signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group. The following year her former label, which owned the master recordings of her six albums, was sold to Scooter Braun, a talent manager whose clients had included Kanye West. Swift publicly spoke out against the deal, claiming that Borchetta had rejected her attempts to acquire the master tapes and that Braun had bullied her over the years. She subsequently tried to negotiate a deal with Braun, but he sold her back catalog to a private investment firm in 2020. Against this backdrop, Swift began rerecording her early material in an effort to gain control of it—the hope being that her remade songs and not the originals would be sought out for licensing deals—and in 2021 Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) appeared. They were remakes of earlier albums with several previously unreleased tracks. In July 2023 Swift released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), followed by 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in October that same year.

In 2019 Swift released her seventh album, Lover, which she described as “a love letter to love itself.” That year she also appeared in the musical Cats, a film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hugely successful stage production. Miss Americana (2020) is a documentary about her life and career. With little advance notice, she released Folklore in 2020. A departure from her previous pop-inspired work, Swift’s eighth studio album drew praise for its introspection and restraint, and it won the Grammy for album of the year. The “sister record,” Evermore, appeared later in 2020.

Midnights, the Eras Tour, and The Tortured Poets Department

Swift adopted a synth-pop sound for the candid Midnights (2022), which she described as “the story of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.” The album received six Grammy nominations, scoring wins for album of the year and best pop vocal album.

March 2023 marked the start of Swift’s first concert tour since 2018, her sixth tour overall. When ticket sales for the Eras Tour opened on Ticketmaster in November 2022, many fans were disappointed by technical issues and waits that lasted up to multiple days. After two rounds of presales, general sales were canceled due to unprecedented demand. Swift expressed disappointment about the situation but did not mention Ticketmaster in her response.

In December 2023, Swift was honored as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” Finalists also included Barbie, Vladimir Putin, and Sam Altman. The honor came shortly after the music streaming platform Spotify deemed her its most-played artist. According to a Bloomberg analysis, Swift is now a billionaire, with a net worth of around $1.1 billion. On a Forbes list of the most powerful women of 2023, Swift placed fifth. Also in 2023, Swift began dating American football player Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. In February 2024, while accepting one of her awards during the Grammy Awards telecast, Swift announced that she would be releasing her next studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, in April. The album was released as a double LP, the 15-track second part dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. Guest artists include Post Malone on the single “Fortnight” and Florence Welch on the track “Florida!!!”

At the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Swift received seven awards, bringing her total count up to 30 and tying her with Beyoncé for solo artist with the most VMAs won during their career. She also left the awards with the most VMAs for best director (for “Fortnight”). She had previously been tied with three VMAs with directors David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

In September 2024, following a televised presidential debate between contenders Vice Pres. Kamala Harris and former Pres. Donald Trump, Swift posted a statement on Instagram in which she endorsed Harris. In her statement, she acknowledged the deepfakes created that had falsely portrayed her as a Trump supporter. She said that she was endorsing Harris because “she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.” Swift closed the year with her final date, on December 8 in Vancouver, of the 21-month Eras Tour, the highest-grossing tour in history. It earned more than $2 billion, double the gross ticket sales for any other concert tour.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

country music

Also known as: country and western, hillbilly music
Top Questions

What are the origins of country music?

How did radio influence the growth of country music?

What impact did migration during the Great Depression and World War II have on country music?

country music, style of American popular music that originated in rural areas of the South and West in the early 20th century. The term country and western music (later shortened to country music) was adopted by the recording industry in 1949 to replace the derogatory label hillbilly music.

Ultimately, country music’s roots lie in the ballads, folk songs, and popular songs of the English, Scots, and Irish settlers of the Appalachians and other parts of the South. It also drew from minstrel and vaudeville traditions as well as African American blues, gospel music, and Tin Pan Alley (a genre of popular music that was centered on the song-publishing industry in New York City at the turn of the 20th century). In turn, country influenced (and was influenced by) many other types of music, from regional genres such as Cajun, zydeco, and Tejano to mainstream genres such as rock, rap, and trap.

Indeed, by the late 20th and early 21st centuries country was no longer a musical expression exclusive to the South or even to the United States. Contemporary country artists hailed from many other parts of the globe, from Canada to New Zealand and Australia. In the words of Willie Nelson, one of the genre’s biggest stars, “It comes from the soul of America, but it has gone around the world.”

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Beginnings in the 1920s

Country’s development was made possible partly by the invention of the phonograph and its ability to record music. In the early 1920s the traditional string-band music of the Southern mountain regions began to be commercially recorded, with Fiddlin’ John Carson garnering the genre’s first hit record, featuring the songs “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” and “The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow,” in 1923. The vigor and realism of the rural songs, many lyrics of which were rather impersonal narratives of tragedies pointing to a stern Calvinist moral, stood in marked contrast to the often mawkish sentimentality of much of the popular music of the day.

More important than recordings for the growth of country music was broadcast radio. Small radio stations appeared in the larger Southern and Midwestern cities in the 1920s, and many devoted part of their airtime to live or recorded music suited to white rural audiences. Two regular programs of great influence were the National Barn Dance from Chicago, begun in 1924, and the Grand Ole Opry from Nashville, begun in 1925. The immediate popularity of such programs encouraged more recordings and the appearance of talented musicians from the hills at radio and record studios. Among these were the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, whose performances strongly influenced later musicians.

These early recordings were of ballads and country dance tunes and featured the fiddle and guitar as lead instruments over a rhythmic foundation of guitar or banjo. Other instruments occasionally used included the Appalachian dulcimer, harmonica, and mandolin; vocals were done either by a single voice or in high close harmony. Another common vocal feature was the yodel, introduced by Rodgers and employed by new generations of singers, such as LeAnn Rimes, into the 21st century.

Singing cowboys, Western swing, and honky-tonk

With the migration of many Southern rural white workers and families to industrial cities during the Great Depression (1929–c. 1939) and World War II (1939–45), country music was carried into new areas and exposed to new influences, such as blues and gospel music. The nostalgic bias of country music, with its lyrics about grinding poverty, orphaned children, bereft lovers, and lonely workers far from home, held special appeal during a time of wide-scale population shifts.

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Despite this shift to the cities, early country music maintained an association with rural stereotypes of not only hill people and mountain folk but also cowboys, farmers, miners, and railroad workers. These mythical figures populated many songs of the genre, and some musicians tailored their image to align with audiences’ assumptions about rural life. Yet, authenticity underlay the image for many stars: Merle Travis, who wrote “Sixteen Tons” (1946), was a coal miner’s son, and Loretta Lynn was, famously, a coal miner’s daughter. During the 1930s a number of “singing cowboy” film stars, of whom Gene Autry was the best known, took country music and with suitably altered lyrics made it into synthetic and adventitious “western” music. This western theme remained popular for decades, as with Marty Robbins’s hit “El Paso” in 1959.

A second and more substantive variant of country music arose in the 1930s in the Texas-Oklahoma region, where the music of rural white fiddle bands was exposed to the swing jazz of Black orchestras and Mexican mariachis. In response, a Western swing style evolved in the hands of Bob Wills and others and came to feature steel and amplified guitars and a strong dance rhythm. An even more important variant was honky-tonk, a country style that emerged in the 1940s with such figures as Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams. Honky-tonk’s fiddle–steel-guitar combination and its bitter, maudlin lyrics about rural folk adrift in the big city were widely adopted by other country musicians.

Bluegrass, the Nashville Sound, and the influence of rock and roll

The same period saw a concerted effort to recover some of country music’s root values. Mandolin player Bill Monroe and his string band, the Blue Grass Boys, discarded more recently adopted rhythms and instruments and brought back the lead fiddle and high harmony singing. His banjoist, Earl Scruggs, developed a brilliant three-finger picking style that brought the instrument into a lead position. Their music, with its driving, syncopated rhythms and instrumental virtuosity, took the name “bluegrass” from Monroe’s band. The vocal style of bluegrass influenced the Louvin Brothers, a duo noted for their pure gospel-tinged sound and distinctive harmonies (also drawn from shape-note singing).

But commercialization proved a much stronger influence as country music became popular in all sections of the United States after World War II. In 1942 in Nashville Roy Acuff, one of the most important country singers, and songwriter Fred Rose organized the first publishing house for country music, the Acuff-Rose Publishing Company. A paramount signing was Hank Williams, whose catalog (including such hits as “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” the Cajun-inflected “Jambalaya,” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”) would have a tremendous influence on country music. Williams’s meteoric rise to fame in the late 1940s helped establish Nashville as the undisputed center of country music, with large recording studios and the Grand Ole Opry as its chief performing venue.

In the 1950s and ’60s country music became a huge commercial enterprise. Producer Chet Atkins developed the so-called Nashville Sound, a style in which many country music recordings employed lush orchestral backgrounds. At the same time, popular singers often recorded songs in a Nashville style.

There was considerable crossover between country and early rock and roll; the songs of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Wanda Jackson, and Carl Perkins (some of whom were labeled “rockabilly” performers) were played on country radio. Chuck Berry blended in country licks on his rock compositions, particularly on his 1955 single “Maybellene.” Later, in the 1960s, California-based bands such as the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers (led by Gram Parsons), and Buffalo Springfield ushered in country rock.

Modern country: From Patsy Cline to “Harper Valley P.T.A.”

In Patsy Cline and George Jones, country music found arguably its two greatest vocalists, both of whom were known for their unique phrasing and strong emotive abilities. Other leading performers of the era were Tex Ritter, Brenda Lee, Ray Price, Kitty Wells, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, and Merle Haggard. Singing songs about social issues and giving voice to such marginalized figures as prisoners, Dust Bowl migrants, and Native Americans, Cash and Haggard (who had been incarcerated as a young man for various petty crimes) paved a way for the “outlaw country” movement of the 1970s.

Ballads were popular on the country chart in the 1950s and ’60s. Tennessee Ernie Ford, Marty Robbins, Lefty Frizzell were strong interpreters of songs centered on storytelling. Frizzell’s haunting murder ballad “The Long Black Veil” (1959) was one of the most influential examples of the form.

Other songwriters took the genre’s capacity for storytelling to new heights in the late 1960s. The 1967 hit “Ode to Billie Joe” by Bobbie Gentry famously leaves listeners hanging at the song’s end regarding the identity of an unnamed object thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge. In 1968 Jeannie C. Riley’s chart-topping “Harper Valley P.T.A.” (written by Tom T. Hall) offered a miniature Peyton Place (a notorious 1956 novel about small-town hypocrisy) in lyrical form; the song relates the story of single mother who confronts the gossips at her teenage daughter’s Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) junior-high-school meeting.

An Interlude: “Listen to the Stories”

Legend has it that jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie (“Bird”) Parker loved country music, especially its lyrics. When a fellow jazz musician asked him, “How can you stand that stuff?” Parker is said to have replied, “The stories, man. Listen to the stories.”

Breaking new ground for women and African American performers

Taking a cue from Cline and Wells, several female country artists came to the forefront, creating songs that reflected women’s perspectives. Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton were among those who were highly influential songwriters as well as distinctive vocalists. Their public image, featuring glamorous hairstyles and sequined dresses, also established an indelible style for country divas for generations. A hallmark of country style for both men and women during this era were Nudie suits, one-of-a-kind “rhinestone cowboy” creations designed by Kyiv-born tailor Nudie Cohn.

Country music in the 1960s was also marked by the success of groundbreaking African American country artists. Although there were Black country artists since the origin of the genre, it was not until the career of honky-tonk vocalist Charley Pride that an African American singing star emerged. In 1967 he became the first Black solo singer to appear at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1969 Linda Martell became the first Black female artist to perform there. Black performers in other genres also had significant success on the country chart; in 1962 soul and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer and pianist Ray Charles released Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which sold more than a million copies, as did its single “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”

The outlaw movement and mainstream country music

The 1970s saw the growth of the outlaw music of prominent Nashville expatriates Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Before the outlaw movement, Nelson had written hits for other artists, the best-known being Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” in 1961. As a singer he innovated a distinctive jazz-style phrasing, unusual to country music. Other seminal outlaw artists were singer-songwriters Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Townes Van Zandt, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, and Steve Earle. Additionally, some former folk musicians, in particular Gram Parsons’s former collaborator Emmylou Harris, successfully shifted their music to country in the 1970s.

Alongside the innovations, traditional bands and performers remained popular, including vocals-based groups such as Alabama, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, and the Oak Ridge Boys and contemporary singers such as Anne Murray and Kenny Rogers.

The gap between country and the mainstream of pop music continued to narrow in the 1970s and the next decade as electric guitars (and electric fiddles, in the case of the Charlie Daniels Band) replaced more traditional instruments and country music became more acceptable to a national urban audience. Country retained its vitality into the late 20th century with such diverse performers as George Strait, Randy Travis, Reba McEntire, Travis Tritt, Faith Hill, the Judds, Vince Gill, Dwight Yoakam, and Lyle Lovett.

Garth Brooks was perhaps the most influential country star of this era, after the release his multimillion-selling album No Fences (1990). Brooks’s concerts were huge productions modeled on stadium rock shows, and he also recorded songs that addressed topics such as racism, interracial relationships, gay rights, and domestic abuse. Country’s popularity with mainstream audiences in the 1990s helped spawn a line-dancing craze, anchored by acts such as Brooks & Dunn and Billy Ray Cyrus.

However, some country purists objected to what they considered to be a focus on style over substance. There was a resurgence of bluegrass in the 1990s, led by fiddler and singer Alison Krauss and her band Union Station. Nashville remained the center of country music, but other cities such as Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles had thriving alternative country scenes, and prominent recording artists emerged from other parts of the country and around the globe, including the U.S. Northeast (Mary Chapin Carpenter), Canada (Anne Murray, k.d. lang, Shania Twain, and Cowboy Junkies), Ireland (Daniel O’Donnell), and Australia (Olivia Newton-John, Slim Dusty, and Keith Urban). In Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, Tejano musicians increasingly incorporated country into their sound.

An Interlude: Tejano

Tejano (Spanish: “Texan”) is a type of Latin popular music that developed in northern Mexico and Texas in the mid-19th century. It blends traditional Mexican forms such as norteño and banda with swing music or European forms such as polka. Later Tejano musicians, such as singers Freddy Fender in the 1970s and Selena in the 1990s, introduced country, disco, and other kinds of music.

Country music politics

By the end of the 20th century country was regarded by many audiences as being a music genre solely produced by and for working-class white Americans who held conservative political views. Earlier country musicians and fans, however, had often aligned with populist or Democratic politics—for example, one of Fiddlin’ John Carson’s tunes was the protest song “The Farmer Is the Man That Feeds Them All.” In the 1960s some country alliances shifted to Republican candidates, and political statements began to show up in song lyrics. Among those who professed their views (whether liberal or conservative) were Cash, Haggard, Lynn, Lee Greenwood, and David Allan Coe.

At the turn of the 21st century some country stars were even more outspoken in their views. During the buildup to the Iraq War in 2003 the Dixie Chicks (later known as the Chicks) received blowback, including being banned from some country radio stations, after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized U.S. Pres. George W. Bush during a concert. A feud also ensued between the group and singer Toby Keith, who had released the patriotic “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Diversifying in the 21st century

Country’s popularity was not hindered by its controversies, however, and its success continued unabated into the 21st century, exemplified by such performers as Kenny Chesney, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, the Zac Brown Band, Sturgill Simpson, Brandi Carlile, Luke Combs, and Chris Stapleton, among others.

Country also continued to diversify. Several African American artists, such as banjoist Rhiannon Giddens and former Hootie & the Blowfish front man Darius Rucker, redefined the traditional forms of bluegrass, Americana, and honky-tonk.

An invigorating new development was country-rap (and country-trap), a mash-up of country, Southern rock, and hip-hop music that resulted in an influx of crossover recording stars such as Nelly, Jelly Roll, Post Malone, Shaboozey, and Morgan Wallen. In 2019 the country-trap song “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus broke the record for the most consecutive weeks (19) a single had topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2024 R&B singer Beyoncé released the Grammy Award-winning album Cowboy Carter, for which she collaborated with Dolly Parton and Linda Martell, among others, and became the first Black woman to top the country chart, with her single “Texas Hold ’Em.”

By 2025, when the venerable Grand Ole Opry celebrated its 100th anniversary, country music was being hailed as the fastest-growing music genre, especially on streaming services. It was increasingly popular among younger audiences, whereas it was previously associated with older demographics. Its fan base had also gone truly global, with high streaming numbers in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia and niche audiences in Japan, the Philippines, and China. Despite its embrace by fans around the world, country music retained an unmistakable character as one of the few truly indigenous American musical styles.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by René Ostberg.